Please help, royal python died!

Sorry for your loss.
But as asked earlier where did you get her from?
Did she show any signs of illness?
Also It doesn't take a snake weeks to shed it takes about a week total and when the old skin starts coming off it only takes a matter of hours. Something was wrong with her when you got her because even if you did everything wrong ( which it doesn't sound like you did) it would take a sub-adult months to expire from not eating or poor husbandry. Talk to whoever you got her from and see if they will do anything about it. And don't give up ball pythons are a great pet

Thank you for you kind words, I appreciate them. I hope in time I will ready to try again as I really do love them!

Sadly you unless you have a necropsy done you will stay in the dark when it come to the cause of death.

While it is unusual for an animal to just die it does happen, few years back I had an albino male (about a year, and had been in my care for 6 months) and I just found him dead one morning (healthy, shedding fine, eating).....cause of death aneryism.

So it can happen, does not mean you are at fault, there is also a chance the animal came in sick it's always a possibility as well.


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So I was going to reply to each response separately but I am not very good at this so will will respond to all with one message! Thank you all for your kind words I appreciate you taking the time to respond and I do feel somewhat reassured that I could not have known (with my general lack of experience) that she was unwell. It's a tough one because if I had any idea at all she would have been straight to the vet but my inexperience let her down. I will try to answer all of your questions as best I can. She was purchased privately from someone who said they were selling her after owning her for a few months because her daughter wanted a dog and she couldn't keep both so the snakes were being sold. Seemed plausible and when I went to get her she seemed genuine enough but I guess I will never know if she had any idea if there was something wrong. I like to think that she didn't. I am therefore not in a position to request a refund/replacement. I purchased her because like I mentioned before she was older and used to being handled etc so I though that might help us both, what with me being a complete novice. She did not have any mucus etc coming from her nose or mouth, both were dry and there was no noise when she was breathing. When I picked her up the skin had come off half of her head and one eye and about one week later it came off the other eye. Both eyes seemed bright once they could both be seen. I will be cleaning out and thoroughly disinfecting everything this weekend. Thank you again for your supportive words and advice.

A couple potential problems that some may disagree with me on. Log hides are not real great as the wood can harbor bacteria. Another potential problem is misting the tank. It can actually cause humidity spikes which can lead to respiratory infection. Out of curiosity did your snake have bubbles around its mouth or popping or clicking when breathing and lastly any excessive yawning? One last thing what type of humidity guage were you using digital or analog? Did you test the guage i wonder if your guage was off. When humidity is correct he should have shed in one solid piece. I am not trying to be critical of care just trying to help you with future care

I'm so sorry! Most likely she was already sick when she got to you.

After reading your story carefully, it seems like she already "finished" the shed and was having stuck shed/a bed shed that only came off her head but not anywhere else. This caused by low humidity. The 3 week process for shedding includes going in blue, not the actual process of pushing the skin off. It only takes an hour for them to push their skin off their head to tail from start to finish.

Not that this is the reason for her death, but just for future reference.

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Originally Posted by Nhsmoker

A couple potential problems that some may disagree with me on. Log hides are not real great as the wood can harbor bacteria. Another potential problem is misting the tank. It can actually cause humidity spikes which can lead to respiratory infection. Out of curiosity did your snake have bubbles around its mouth or popping or clicking when breathing and lastly any excessive yawning? One last thing what type of humidity guage were you using digital or analog? Did you test the guage i wonder if your guage was off. When humidity is correct he should have shed in one solid piece. I am not trying to be critical of care just trying to help you with future care

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I would say the previous owner was responsible for not providing the proper humidity. The snake starting a bad shed the first week the OP owned it can not be blamed on the OP. It would take longer than 5 days to cause a bad shed and longer than 14 to fix it.


As far as misting causing an RI, that is news to me. I mist many of my snakes daily and during a shed sometimes more and have never had an issue.

Agreed. For misting to cause an RI would have to have put ambient humidity above optimal range for an extended period of time. Increasing humidity is what's usually called for in an RI to help keep mucous loose, and because RIs quite often occur due to too low of humidity.

That said, it would still take more than two weeks for an RI to do in an animal in even just sorta okay condition. I've had my skinny girl going on the antibiotic merry-go-round for almost three months now, and she was sold to me as a problem feeder snake that had been in someone else's sub optimal care for about 9 months before that, and they didn't even notice she had an RI. While I wouldn't call her thriving at the moment, she's certainly not at death's door yet either.

I didn't mean to imply the op caused the problems. Misting causes humidity spikes and can certainly cause ri but I can't imagine it can happen in a couple weeks. I just don't believe misting is a great habit and find it unnecessary.

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Originally Posted by Lizardlicks

Agreed. For misting to cause an RI would have to have put ambient humidity above optimal range for an extended period of time. Increasing humidity is what's usually called for in an RI to help keep mucous loose, and because RIs quite often occur due to too low of humidity.

That said, it would still take more than two weeks for an RI to do in an animal in even just sorta okay condition. I've had my skinny girl going on the antibiotic merry-go-round for almost three months now, and she was sold to me as a problem feeder snake that had been in someone else's sub optimal care for about 9 months before that, and they didn't even notice she had an RI. While I wouldn't call her thriving at the moment, she's certainly not at death's door yet either.

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Just out of curiosity what antibiotics has your skinny girl been on? Did your vet do a culture or just prescribe a broad band antibiotic